Steps

//** “If we teach today like we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.” ~ **** John Dewey **//

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=//Where do I start?//=
 * Read **
 * Explore the websites, watch the videos, and read the articles listed in the resources.
 * "Follow" other educators on twitter and with their blogs. Learn from their successes __and__ failures.
 * Look through the ACTFL and Partnership for 21st Century Learning Skills Map for range level expectations.
 * Look at the ACTFL 21st Century Learning Skills Map wiki for examples provided by other teachers from around the country.

=**//Then What?//**= **Observe**
 * Another teacher: in your building or at a conference
 * A lesson: in your building, as described on the ACTFL 21st Century Skills Map
 * A video: YouTube, TeacherTube, Internet search
 * Lurk: on twitter, with blogs. Listen to others as you learn to develop your own voice

=//How do I start?//= **Planning**
 * Look at your lessons, you don't need to throw them all away!
 * Ask yourself and/or your colleagues:
 * What do you want your students to know?
 * What do you want your students to be able to do?
 * What are the //essential questions// you will be asking? Those questions that foster life-long learning?
 * How will you get them there? What tools? What processes?
 * How will students demonstrate their learning and understanding?
 * Plan with colleagues
 * Plan with the end in mind and you'll be to check for you these skills and/or see where they will help drive your end goals.
 * Communicate: with your students, with your colleagues, with your parents! Make your purposes and goals clear!
 * Solicit feedback
 * Don't be afraid: try something new; give up something traditionally sacred in your planning if it isn't what's best for kids in the long run; take a risk

=//Keep in Mind//= Follow these 8 Habits of Highly Effective 21st Century Teachers found in this blog and originally posted from Andrew Church
 * 1) **Adapting**
 * 2) adapt to the curriculum
 * 3) teach in imaginative ways
 * 4) **Being Visionary**
 * 5) see the potential in emerging technologies
 * 6) manipulate those technologies to your needs
 * 7) look across disciplines and through curricula
 * 8) **Collaborating**
 * 9) leverage collaborative tools
 * 10) must be collaborators: share, contribute, adapt, invent
 * 11) **Taking Risks**
 * 12) surrender to students' knowledge and leverage that
 * 13) have a vision of what you want and what technology can do
 * 14) **Learning**
 * 15) work at staying current
 * 16) learn to adapt
 * 17) **Communicating**
 * 18) become fluent in tools that facilitate communication and collaboration
 * 19) facilitate, control, moderate, manage those tools
 * 20) **Modeling Behavior**
 * 21) model what we expect from our students
 * 22) model tolerance, global awareness, and reflective practice
 * 23) **Leading**
 * 24) be a leader!

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"Your assignment, should you choose to accept it" is to take education truly into the 21st century" ~ Scott MacLoed, Dangerously Irrelevant

Keep coming back and checking in here! A rubric for the 21st Century Teacher is coming!